Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/67

 10 s. x. JULY is, 1908.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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it." No version of ' Yankee Doodle ' known in this country contains a reference to Kitty Fisher. As for the nursery rime, the earliest allusion to it known to the present writer is under date of 1832. Whether the Kitty Fisher of the nursery rime has anything to do with " the cele- brated Miss Kitty Fisher," as she was called, who married John Norris, jun., is uncertain. While at the present time a version of ' Yankee Doodle ' sung in this country contains the word " macaroni," yet this version is modern, and was unknown previous to 1800. Hence " the references to ' Kitty Fisher' and to 'Macaroni'" do not fix " the date of the song as between 1755 and 1760," because no version of ' Yankee Doodle ' contains a reference to Kitty Fisher, and no version of ' Yankee Doodle ' before 1800 contains a reference to " macaroni." Much nonsense has been written about " the original ' Yankee Doodle ' song." If there ever was such a song, it cannot be too strongly insisted upon that the words are absolutely and utterly lost. The present writer has searched every conceivable source of information, including many American and London newspapers from 1754 to 1780, and has found no words until about 1790.

5. Speaking of ' Fisher's Jig,' DR. FLOOD says that " the jig, even under its adapted title of ' Yankee Doodle,' was known in 1756." When and where was it known under that name, or under any other name, in 1756 ? The earliest known allusion to the 1767 comic opera mentioned above. Nor has any one yet produced proof that the air was known under any name previous to 1767. ALBERT MATTHEWS.
 * Yankee Doodle ' under that name is in

Boston, U.S.

QUEEN CAROLINE (10 S. ix. 449, 495). MR. MORETON might have looked up the authorities before attempting to reawaken ridicule of a great and good man. If he had read either Adolphus's ' Trial of Her Majesty Caroline, Queen Consort of Great Britain,' or Huish's ' Trial at large of Her Majesty Caroline Amelia Elizabeth, Queen of Great Britain, in the House of Lords, printed verbatim from the authenticated Journals of the House of Peers,' he would have seen that Denman's peroration was in these words :

" who, not in a case like this, where innocence is manifest, but where guilt was detected and vice revealed, said, ' If no accuser can come forward to condemn thee, neither do I condemn thee ; go, and sin no more ' "

surely a vastly different sentence from that quoted on the authority of Sir William Fraser's volume.

That Denman himself regretted his refer- ence to the woman taken in adultery is clear from an extract from his own personal narrative given in Arnould's * Memoir.' Therein he says :

" I hope that [my speech] was of some use to the Queen, though the unfortunate turn that was, not quite unjustly, given to the parable of the woman taken in adultery has given me some of the bitterest moments of my life. Not that the subject was unfit to be touched, for it could not fail to have some effect on persons possessing religious feelings ; but it ought not to have formed the concluding sentence, and might have been more guardedly introduced, and more dextrously softened off. It came into my head after ten hours' speaking, at four, when the house had uniformly adjourned with the utmost punctuality, and at a moment when the feelings of that assembly were wrought up to the very highest pitch. These circumstances account in some degree for an indiscretion which nothing can fully justify."

Let me quote one other passage from Sir Joseph Arnould's ' Memoir of Lord Denman ' (vol. i. p. 155) :

" In reply to the suggestion that though all par- ticular mention of the Queen's name was omitted from the Liturgy, she might yet be considered as being comprised in the general prayer for the royal family, he said, in a tone of the deepest and most solemn pathos, that ' if Her Majesty was included in any general prayer, it was the prayer for all that are desolate and oppressed.' "

ARTHUR DENMAN, F.S.A.

CORNISH AND OTHER APPARITIONS (10 S. ix. 325, 392 ; x. 35). Samuel Drew, re- ferred to in the first note, edited the ' His- tory of Cornwall ' by Fortescue Hitchins. In the second volume of that, in more senses than one, ponderous work, on pp. 549 et seq., is the following story. I have condensed it by the omission of unnecessary words.

"A ghost made its appearance in this parish [South Petherwinl. It was said to have been seen by a son of Mr. Bligh, by his father and mother, and by the Rev. John Ruddle. The relation given by Mr. Ruddle is in substance as follows : Young Mr. Bligh, a lad of no common attainments, be- came, on a sudden, pensive and melancholy. He was induced, after some time, to inform his brother that in a field he was invariably met by an appa- rition of a woman whom he knew while living, and who had been dead about eight years. Ridicule, threats, and persuasions were used in vain to in- duce him to dismiss these absurd ideas. Mr. Ruddle was sent for, to whom the lad communicated the time, manner, and frequency of this appearance. The apparition, he said, appeared in female attire, met him two or three times, glided hastily by him, but never spoke. At length the appearance be- came more frequent, but always in the same field. He often spoke to it, but could never get any reply. He forsook the field and went to school and re-